Hitler Beats Steyn in Oz

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty creeped out by the fact that, on Amazon Australia's list of "Hot New Releases," the Nazi's turgid "struggle" crapola is #3 while Mark Steyn's delectable Lights Outs is #12.

It begs the question: what the heck is going on with readers Down Under?

Shut Up and Pat the Sheep

Jerry Agar, who hosts a local phone-in radio show, wanted to discuss the curious incident of a British transsexual ( who was born a he but now self-identifies as a she, even though "her" male paraphernalia remains intact) who was put into a male prison when s/he overstayed her visa. The trans person was visiting her Canadian girlfriend, a CFB (chick from birth), thereby making her Brit main squeeze--stay with me here because it gets kind of complicated--a transsexual lesbian with original male equipment; well, I guess it saves on those pricey strap-on bills.

Anyhoo, Jerry was told that there was no problem discussing the matter (free speech being enshrined in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms). The caveat, of course: no "hate speech" was permitted. And in the minds of our kooky "human rights" officials and "human rights" codes which might as well be writ in stone, calling a pre-op transsexual a "he" when that individual self-identifies as a "she" (or vice versa--a "she" when that trans person identifies as a "he") falls under the rubric of "hate." Given that, Agar notes that there's no such thing as free speech--and no way to have a conversation on the subject--because the "human rights" apparatchiks have already ruled that there's only one acceptable way to think and/or talk about such things. Thus, observes Agar, there is no real discussion. There is only Orwellian "Newspeak":

Newstalk1010 Brand Manager Mike Bendixen clarified that for radio and TV, the rule is that so long as the conversation is not hateful, it is acceptable. 

Unfortunately, however, we have seen people brought before human rights inquiries because someone else’s feelings were hurt. 

We’ve seen human rights commissions force women to accept males in locker rooms and bathrooms, regardless of how that impacts women. 

Newspeak in this case demands we show deference to an individual who is biologically male, because “she” has a right to be there, despite having male genitalia... 

Transgendered people do not deserve to be mocked. Many of us lack understanding of why they feel the way they do. 

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t be able to have an intelligent conversation about our understanding of the relevant issues, without a referee declaring our thoughts out of bounds. 

Newspeak is not free speech. It is not free at all. It is totalitarian.

Of course it is. And, really, isn't that the discussion we should be having? A chat about how it isn't really about "hate speech" at all, "hate speech" merely being the peg on which it's hung. How at bottom it's all about power and domination and the desire--the will--to control. How this lupine totalitarianism is disguised (albeit not particularly well) as a sweet, fleecy, adorable and supposedly innocuous creature--the little lamb that ameliorates or spares "hurt feelings."

Hold your tongue; pat the sheep; lose your freedom. As the "human rights"/anti-"hate speech" control freaks know, it's as simple as that.



Pat the "sheep"--at your own risk!



UN Buries the Lede Even as the Civil War in Syria Buries Palestinian "Refugees"

The madness of foisting a permanent refugee status on these people becomes even clearer in light of events such as this:

17 February 2014 – Unable for the tenth straight day to deliver life-saving aid to thousands of Palestinian refugees trapped in a camp near Damascus, the United Nations agency charged with ensuring their well-being is again appealing strongly to the parties to allow in desperately needed food, medicines and other humanitarian assistance to the war-weary civilians. “There has been no change in the situation,” said Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), lamenting that the agency's food distribution inside Yarmouk camp, south of crisis-torn Syria's capital, remained on hold for the tenth consecutive day. While no UNRWA staff visited the camp today, Mr. Gunness said the agency remains hopeful that unrestricted humanitarian access to the civilian population inside Yarmouk will be granted and that its food distribution will resume without further delay. UNRWA has not had access to the camp since fighting broke out late at night on 7 February, forcing the agency to temporarily suspend its activities. A food parcel lasts an average family about 10 days, so provisions are now running out, Mr. Gunness explained earlier, adding that, “as malnutrition…is reportedly widespread, the fate particularly of women and children is of growing concern.”...

Quick now: what comes to mind when you think "refugee camp"? Tents and/or other makeshift and impermanent structures? Well, that's not what this so-called refugee camp consists of (and here's where the lede-burying comes in, i.e. almost at the bitter end of the piece):

Prior to the armed conflict in Syria, which began in March 2011, Yarmouk – a suburb just south of Damascus – was home to over 160,000 Palestine refugees. Since December 2012, fighting has caused at least 140,000 Palestine refugees to flee their homes in Yarmouk, as armed opposition groups established a presence in the area, with Government forces controlling the periphery.

A suburb--you know, with apartment buildings, stores, schools and the like. And about as permanent as it gets unless blown to bits by Arab proxies of the Khomeinists battling Arab proxies of the Saudis. Of course, you know who will be blamed for the destruction? Why, the Jooos, of course. For if only these "refugees" had been allowed to "return" to their homes in "occupied Palestine" (a.k.a. Israel), keys and all, decades ago, none of this would be happening.

You wanna bet that none of them will be toting the keys to their homes in the Damascus suburb, those keys being imbued with no significance at all.

Official Jew Abe Foxman Retires, Eyes Wide Shut as Per Usual

The ADL's Grand Poobah lo these past 50--yes, 50!--years has retired. As a parting shot, he summarized the resurgence of Jew-loathing in Europe while, oddly enough, ignoring the wacky, Koran-inspired Zionhass that has meshed so well with the leftist variety and that has now metastasized globally. Here's Mark Steyn, who has never suffered official Jewish fools gladly, on the subject:

Jewish groups missed the threat 80 years ago, too. But why wouldn't they? There'd always been anti-Semitism in Europe: You can't buy property here, you can't stand for parliament there, and everywhere always a certain sliver of people who just don't want to be around Jews. But it didn't turn genocidal until the 1930s, and, after a millennium of low-level Jew hate, you can understand why nobody saw it coming.

But the violent, murderous phase of the new Jew-hatred is already here - in the emergency ward of the Royal London Hospital; in the corpse-strewn schoolyard of Toulouse; in the synagogue in Brussels set alight by Molotov cocktails; in a pleasant Jewish home in Antwerp, where burning rags were pushed through the mail flap; at the RER train station in Auber, where a commuter was savagely assaulted by a mob taunting, "Palestine will kill the Jews"; in the suburban home where a young Frenchman was tortured to death over three weeks while his family listened via phone to his howls of agony as his captors chanted from the Koran; in the stairwell of the apartment house where a Paris disc-jockey had his throat slit, his eyes gouged out, and his face ripped off by a neighbor who crowed, "I have killed my Jew!"

Old Abe should have dropped by one of the Ayatollah Khomeini's annual Queen's Park seethe-a-thons. Perhaps that might have opened his eyes.

Update: LRC and Blog Wrath weigh in.


The face of the "new" Jew-hate

Muslim Brotherhood on Campus--No Booze, No Hazing, But Plenty of Koran

If you didn't know that the Muslim Student Association was the campus branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (mission statement: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope"), you would think that this amounted to nothing more good wholesome fun:

Shortly before sunrise, a dozen or so students at the University of California, San Diego, stumbled dutifully out of bed. They ironed their shirts, knotted their ties and piled into their cars. Their destination was the Islamic Center of San Diego, where they were to be initiated into the country’s first Muslim fraternity, Alpha Lambda Mu, named for three letters that start several chapters of the Quran: Alif Laam Meem.  

After the morning prayer, the 13 pledges recited a passage from the Quran, then listened as their adviser applied the Islamic values of loyalty and sincerity to daily life on campus.  

Finally, the young men pronounced their goals for the coming semester: Rumzi Khan, a computer science major who founded the chapter, vowed to pray more. Several science majors promised to double down on their studying. Samer Abusaleh, a junior in economics, pledged to be more consistent with his Quran reading. He also wanted to work on his six-pack.  

There was nothing typical about this initiation, which ended over plates of carrot cake pancakes and huevos rancheros. No beer pong. No hazing. None of the raucousness that characterises frat life.  

Alpha Lambda Mu was founded a year ago by Ali Mahmoud, a junior biology and sociology major at the University of Texas, Dallas, as a national fraternity for Muslim college students.  

Mahmoud, who is seeking university recognition and a house for his chapter, hosted the first formal rush this autumn: 40 students showed up, and half were offered bids. A total of 24 members now make up the Texas chapter.  

Mahmoud, whose parents emigrated from Egypt before he was born, says he founded the frat to offer Muslim students the chance to express both sides of their identity, the American and the Muslim, at a time when “more and more of us identify strongly with both”...

And, of course, part of that expression is out and out Zionhass:

The chapter at the University of California, Irvine, was suspended for the 2010 autumn semester after members protested a campus speech by the ambassador to Israel...

In that respect at least, the Muslim fraternities fit it with the current campus Zeitgeist far better than the pro-Zionists--be they Jewish or Christian--do.

Later, Gators

I'm taking the looooong weekend off. See y'all Monday at the earliest and Tuesday at the latest. In the meantime, feel free to visit any or all of my rowdy friends listed on the right.

For Proponents of Gay Rights, Why Is Sochi Such a Big Deal While Africa Remains, Um, Unexplored?

Bruce Bawer, who BTW is gay, has some thoughts on the matter. He asks

how many gay Americans, activist or otherwise, have gotten worked up about the human-rights situation for gay people in most of Africa? How many even know about it? Damn few. Instead, in recent months, the focus has been on Russia, with more than a few prominent Western gays worrying aloud that the Sochi Olympics would end up being the same kind of PR coup for the gay-hating Putin – in whose country it’s now effectively illegal for gay-rights activists to organize or speak out publicly – that the 1936 Berlin Olympics were for the the Jew-hating Hitler. Putin, wrote actor Stephen Fry last August in an ardent open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, “is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews.” Consequently, “an absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential….At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.” Countless other Western luminaries concurred.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Putin’s antigay campaign, which has led to arrests, beatings, and murders, isn’t utterly despicable and deserving of the severest censure – it most surely is. But witnessing the massive, months-long display of Western fury over the treatment of gays in Russia, one couldn’t help noticing the contrast between this explosion of righteous anger and the almost total silence in the West about gays in Uganda, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone (where they’re subject to life imprisonment) and Mauritania, Sudan, and northern Nigeria (where they face the death penalty).

Fry, to his credit, is actually one of the few prominent gays in the West who has paid attention to gays in Africa: last October, on a BBC program about the persecution of gays worldwide, Fry talked to a Ugandan girl who’d been raped at age 14 to “cure” her of lesbianism. But Fry is the exception that proves the rule. Why do almost all other Western gay-rights activists all but ignore the savagely antigay policies of Africa’s despotic regimes? At least part of the explanation seems clear. The despots are black – and, in many cases, Muslim as well – and the activists in question are almost invariably good little multiculturalists who know the rules: first, the white-skinned man must never, ever presume to give moral lectures to the dark-skinned man; second, Islam is above criticism...

In other words, political correctness strikes again--and makes its practitioners look craven and stupid.

The UN Makes Another Bid for an Overarching One World Gov--With the Help of an Obama Factotum

What's with these people and their naked need to control everything?:

John Podesta, the former Clinton Administration chief of staff who is spearheading President Barack Obama’s aggressive strategy of government-by-regulation, has also been helping United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with an even more ambitious job: setting the stage to radically transform the world’s economic, environmental and social agenda. 

That effort—a colossal and sweeping form of  global behavior modification--is supposed to get a new kick-start at a special U.N. summit of world leaders to be convened by Ban in New York City on September 25.  

Its supporters hope that effort will end next year in a new international treaty that will bind all 193 U.N. members-- including the U.S-- to a still formless “universal sustainable development agenda” for the planet that will take effect in 2020. 

“Developing a single, sustainable development agenda is critical,” says a report produced in May, 2013 by a 27-member “High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons”  hand-picked by Ban to help focus the discussion and frame the effort required to make the huge and lengthy project a success...

Lots of shmancy consultants and the, er, "eminent" will no doubt make a ton off cash off the agenda, but it all (essentially, central planning on a global scale) sounds pretty ghastly to me. And anytime the UN gets behind one of these efforts, be it a Durban confab or one of those Kyoto thingies, you know that no good--and much that's bad--will come of it.

You Want Fries With That?

Here's an eatery I won't be visiting any time soon--or ever:

Severed human heads were found at a restaurant which also served human flesh, reports have said.

The grizzly discovery was made at a hotel restaurant in Nigeria, which was allegedly serving 'roasted human head' among other less than savoury food items. 

Weapons were also seized during the raid, according to the Metro newspaper. 

According to reports, a pastor who visited the restaurant was told, after he had eaten, that the restaurant was serving human meat. 

"So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price," he said. 

‘What is this country turning into? Can you imagine people selling human flesh as meat." 

Some 11 people have been arrested following a police tip-off.

Tastes like chicken? (In fact, human flesh is said to taste a lot like pig, a nugget of info I picked up in Paul Theroux's The Happy Isles of Oceania. According to Theroux, cannibals in that region call people meat "long pig" in homage to the similarity.)

Just in Time for Valentine's Day: Love TDSB Style

The TDSB's ongoing bullying obsession continues to be completely over the top:

A few years back, the Arts Department at Central Commerce Collegiate (CCC) started the first of what has become an annual fundraising/social consciousness campaign with a “We Take No BULL-ying” message, featuring student poster designs, stickers, graffiti murals and t-shirt designs.

For 2014, CCC students were inspired by the closing line “Choose Love” from the school’s play Romea (sic) and Juliet, which brings awareness surrounding LGBTQ issues and in support of same-sex couples. T-shirts were designed once again and students had an opportunity to work alongside photographer Cory VanderPloeg from the collective Hermann and Audrey. This year’s campaign shoot took place within the halls of Central Commerce CI. 

The arts department rebranded itself as the “HeARTs Department” as students continue to collaborate with one another, additional departments such as Leadership and Phys-Ed, and creative professionals in the community on a number of projects...

What about all the other kinds of kids who get bullied--the fatties, the pizza-faced, the misfits, the nerds? Where's the "We Take No BULL-ying"/"Choose Love" awareness-raising campaign for them?

Steyn on the Oakley Show

Hear it here.